Kim Dae Jung, as the president of capitalist South Korea, flew to Pyongyang in June 2000 for the first ever summit with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il. Two years and four months later, all the hopes engendered by that historic meetingwere shattered as Kim Jong Il was revealed to have betrayed all the promises he ever made.

With his death on Tuesday, Kim Dae Jung leaves a legacy that epitomizes the dreams, disappointment and failure to reunite the Korean peninsula and get North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program. He won the Nobel Peace Prize six months after resolving, in a joint declaration with Kim Jong Il, to resolve “humanitarian” issues, reopen borders, and unite families. Like every other attempt at rapprochement, however, those promises were meaningless.